Sing Unto the Lord

I wrote this for ccecnitechurch.com. It’s all about a new music festival starting this weekend on the coast. Its already sold out. I tried to win some tickets this morning from our local paper but was unlucky. Might drive past though and check the crowd.

Here’s the article:

…

Nitechurch is on about bringing Hope to the coast through Jesus. In particular we aim at young people living on the coast, of which there is a growing number. We want to help these people see that while the coast is a beautiful place to be, surf in, work in, study in, enjoy life – all of these things become empty without hope.
We are a culture who lives for sunshine and beer. We live for music and good times, but death and eternity make fools of us. Ultimately it is tragic if all we live for is empty promises. But this is the air we breathe. Somehow we want to show people the emptiness of the idols they are living for. They need to see that in the end they can’t satisfy. The only one who can bring hope and eternal significance and meaning is Jesus. He is the one who really died for the Young guys on the coast so that they could have life, real life. Hope can only be found in him.
As we take this message to the coast as a church we want to know the coast. We want to love the coast. We want to love the young people on the coast so that we can engage with them where they are at.
This year on September 20 the coast is hosting an event for young people that will possibly go on to be one of the biggest music events of the year. Just like ‘Splendour in the Grass’ is for Byron and ‘West Coast Blues and Roots’ is for Fremantle, ‘Coaster’ is set to be the defining music festival for the Central Coast.
Bands like Cog, The Living End, The Matches, Kisschasy, Something with Numbers, Blue King Brown plus heaps of other acts are going to be coming to Gosford Showground.
I think this is going to be huge for our culture on the Coast and it would be just like Christians to have nothing to do with it.
Imagine though if at Nitechurch we thought through ways that we could engage with the culture that we are part of. Imagine if we spent our time thinking about what the questions are that our culture is asking.
It would be mad to see a crew of Nitechurch at Coaster. Maybe in the future we can have more of a presence in events like this on the Coast. Maybe I’m just raving. But I don’t think so. I think we need to work hard at making sure we are enough in our culture so that we can engage with it.
If all we do is go to our work or uni for as little time as possible and then spend all our weekends with our Christian friends, how can we possibly move towards seeing more young people on the coast coming to know Jesus? I know that this is a huge challenge to me. I need to make sure that I get off my butt and start looking for ways to engage with the coast.
Pray for the coast and get amongst it so that you can know how to love it like Jesus does.

Starting reading this yesterday. Pretty hard to put down.

Two quotes that seem timely in terms all the chat going on around the Australian blogosphere…

This is from the Preface to the 1927 edition in reference o part of the book:

‘Part three stresses the short time devoted by St Paul to training converts before they were baptized, and the contrast between the rapid manner of appointing responsible church leaders in his day with the slowness of the present, together with our unconscious ’suppression’ and ’silencing’ of natural leaders and prophets’

This is in reference to ’strategic cities’ and planting churches in them:

‘A concentrated mission may be a great prison or a great market: it may be a safe in which all the best intellect of the day is shut up, or it may be a mint from which the coin of new thought is put into circulation. A great many of our best men are locked up in strategic centres: if once they get in they find it hard to get out. At many of the strategic points where we have established our concentrated missions it is noticable that the church rather resembles a prison or a safe or a swamp into which the best life of the country round is collected than a mint or a spring or a railway station from which life flows out into the country. We are sometimes so enamoured with the strategic beauty of a place that we spend our time in fortifying it whilst the opportunity for a great campaign passes by unheeded or neglected.‘

Pretty interesting thoughts for a book written in 1912.

The vids are up from driscoll on the coast.

There’s some music there.

From the first night:

Blessed be your name vid and audio

Nothing but the Blood audio

When I survey audio

From the second night:

Amazing Grace audio

How deep the Father’s Love vid and audio

Saw this on Ed Stetzer’s blog. Hilarious.

Feeling itchy. Looking at a few new browsers. Firefox is great and I have no complaints. I’m just looking at greener grass. Has anyone tried any of these and can give it a laymans plug?

Camino

Chrome

Flock

Any others? Opera? Something I haven’t mentioned?

Hey all. Just in case you haven’t heard, all the seminars are up from Worship God ‘08. That includes seminars on guitar, bass, keys, drums and vocals as well as some tech stuff. If you are running a music ministry you should spend some time listening to the relational seminars too. Good stuff. It’s almost like flying to washington.

Heaps of talk of on the interwebs lately about church planting. That’s pretty mad. Exciting if things start happening and guys stop talking.

BUT if that does happen it would be worth thinking through the way that music functions in church plants and some stuff about culture.

I had a bit of a chat recently with a mate of mine who is planting a church next year in Forster. He was saying that while he gets so many aspects of what he wants to do next year, while he knows he wants great music, he hasn’t really worked out how to do that with a plant that will start with ten people in a house. He hasn’t thought through songs. He hasn’t given heaps of thought to style. He just knows what he wants but not how to get it.

In fact I’d be surprised if having great music wasn’t a goal for many church planters. Everyone wants to have great music, but its my fear that if it isn’t thought through it will be an afterthought that can end up affecting a church’s viability to grow.

I reckon there are three things that are worth considering when planting, in the area of music and singing.

1) The dude

I’ve heard Mark Driscoll and others say the most important factor in church planting is the guy heading it up. I think that that relates in this area too. As you plant are you taking someone with you who has the ability to develop this area of your plant? Is there someone heading up music and singing when you plant or are you just imagining it will happen or that you could stick on a CD. Be clear on your goals. If singing isn’t a high priority for you then don’t waste time investing in it. But if it is, a random with a guitar won’t cut it. The person heading up your new music ministry needs to be on board with where you want church to go culturally and stylistically. They need to be invovled with you in thinking about what your meetings will look like and feel like. I think those things are important. Think carefully about who your core is you are taking with you. Perhaps someone to oversee your meetings and singing stuff would be a worthwhile thing to chase up.

2) The Culture

Church plants work well because generally they are better at doing evangelism than established churches. It’s one of their features. Being on mission to the area that you are planting in means being culturally aware of the area you are planting in. Just cos you love rocking out doesn’t mean the rest of Lithgow will. Spend some time working out what the musical culture of your area is and then think carefully with your music dude about how you can represent that in your meetings. You don’t want to be dropping into somewhere with your own culture and forcing it on others. You want to celebrate the indigenous culture of the area you are planting in. You can do this musically. It actually might be a welcome change to the way many non christians are used to church doing music. Use their natural expression of music in the way that you do it. Be intentional about this too. Don’t just drift and do the easy option. Think carefully and go and see some local live music. Ask locals what they listen to. Check out some 25 most played lists on random ipods.

3) Growth vs Control

If music is something that you struggle with then it is easy to just say yes to every tom, dick and harry who come along offering to do music in your plant. Be careful. Recruit slowly so that you can be sure your cultural integrity isn’t lost. Recruit so that locals feel part of whats going on and so that you can have a more indigenous expression, but recruit slowly. There is a tension between the principles of growth and control kind of like abseiling. You won’t get anywhere if you don’t relax and let go of the rope. You won’t grow and develop a vibrant music ministry if you don’t step out and let the team grow. BUT if you just let go of the rope you will die. Let go slowly and cautiously but let go.

That’s just my simple thoughts today. I haven’t thought heaps but I hope its helpful for you if you are thinking of planting.

I have been so sick over the last four days. I stayed in bed all day yesterday and most of this morning so that I have some strength to go and see Thrice tonight. I’m planning on sharing my disease with as many people as possible.
Is anyone else heading in?